For doctors
Refer a Patient
Information for general practitioners, RMPs, nursing homes and primary health centres across Anantapur district referring a patient to SIMS — how to refer, what information helps, direct admission, and the feedback you receive afterwards.
A note to referring colleagues
Most patients who reach a tertiary hospital in this district arrive because a doctor in a clinic in Guntakal, Tadipatri, Kadiri, Uravakonda or a village PHC recognised that the problem had outgrown what could be managed locally. That judgement, made early, is frequently the decisive act in the whole episode of care.
SIMS accepts referrals for emergency and elective care across the specialities available on campus — cardiology with catheterisation laboratory support, neurology and neurosurgery, critical care, surgical specialities, obstetrics with neonatal intensive care, nephrology, pulmonology and oncological surgery, with imaging and laboratory services available round the clock.
Our commitment to referring doctors is straightforward: we will tell you what we found, what we did, and what we want you to continue. The patient remains yours. A referral is a consultation, not a transfer of the relationship.
How to refer
- For an emergency, send the patient and call ahead
Do not delay transfer for paperwork. Call 108 or arrange transport, and have someone contact the emergency department while the patient is on the way so that the team, bed and any equipment can be ready. Advance notice is particularly valuable for suspected heart attack, stroke within the treatment window, major trauma, obstetric haemorrhage and a patient requiring ventilation.
- Send a referral note with the patient
A brief written note travels better than a verbal message relayed through relatives. Include your name, qualification, clinic and contact number so the treating consultant can reach you.
- For elective referrals, route through the appointment desk
For planned surgical opinion, investigation or a specialist consultation, the appointment desk can schedule the patient with the appropriate consultant and confirm the clinic day, which saves your patient a wasted journey.
- Request direct admission where it is appropriate
A patient who clearly needs admission — for intravenous antibiotics, decompensated heart failure, uncontrolled diabetes, planned surgery or a scheduled procedure — can be directed to the admission counter rather than being routed through the outpatient queue. Speak to the department in advance so the bed and the receiving team are arranged.
- Tell the family what to carry
Previous records, current medicine strips, identity proof and insurance cards. Families frequently arrive without documentation that would have saved hours and repeated tests.
Information that genuinely changes the receiving team's decisions
Referral notes are often brief out of necessity. If you have time for only a few lines, these are the ones worth writing.
- The reason for referral, stated as a question — what you want answered or done
- Time of symptom onset, especially for chest pain, stroke and trauma; this determines which treatments remain possible
- Vital signs recorded at your clinic, including the time they were taken
- Treatment already given, with doses and timing — thrombolytics, antibiotics, steroids, insulin, atropine, antivenom, analgesia
- Known allergies and adverse drug reactions
- Existing diagnoses and long-term medication, particularly anticoagulants, antiplatelets, insulin, steroids and anti-epileptics
- Relevant investigations already performed, with the actual reports or films where available
- For obstetric referrals, gestational age, parity, antenatal complications and the last recorded foetal heart rate
- For a poisoning or bite, the substance or the circumstances, and the time of exposure
- Whether the family has been told the likely diagnosis, and what they have been told
For suspected myocardial infarction, acute stroke, major trauma, obstetric haemorrhage, sepsis with hypotension or a compromised airway, transfer immediately. An ECG, a scan or a blood test arranged locally first can consume the exact window in which treatment would still have worked. Stabilise what you can, secure the airway and circulation, call 108, and send the patient. The investigations can be repeated here in minutes.
What you receive back
Every referred patient is discharged with a summary covering the presenting problem, the findings, the investigations performed, the treatment given, the procedure details where one was carried out, the medicines advised at discharge with doses and duration, and the follow-up plan.
Where you have provided your contact details on the referral note, the treating consultant can be reached to discuss the case, and for complex or unexpected outcomes a direct conversation is usually more useful than a written summary. If a patient is transferred back to your care for continuing treatment, the summary states explicitly what we would like monitored and what should prompt a return.
If a referred patient's outcome differs from what you expected, or if the communication back to you was inadequate, we would rather hear it than not. That feedback improves the referral pathway for the next patient, and referring doctors are usually the first to notice when something in it is not working.
Request a call back
Leave your details and the department you need, and the hospital will call you back to discuss the referral, arrange a bed or connect you with the relevant consultant.
Not sure which department you need?
Share your symptoms and the appointment desk will route you to the right consultant. For anything sudden or severe, do not wait for a callback — come to the emergency department.